"our PLA is the best army in the world,PLA is better than other country"army even theUSA."

only coz PLA is saving you, not killing you, on this particular 6/4

you'll be ok just never ask Y scools fell but government buildings were ok.

Mei Guo Ren, Au mountain,

Now.i am in sichuan province,China. i know what happens here. In this earthquake ,my friends and my classmates and my countryman now all admire our government and our PLA ,i love them ,our PLA is the best army in the world,PLA is better than other country"army even theUSA.

wang zhen ya, Chengdu , China

To Timothy:
That's just lame. Its a well known fact that nuke sites were affacted in the quake, and more than 30 sources of radiation were buried by debris. If there was any 'accurate' warning, they'd have removed those nuke stuff beforehand, as the damage would be impossible to cover up.

Dan, London, UK

I can tell you.In 1976,there was a big earthquake in TangShan,China.Before the earthquake,many people found that there would be a strong earthquake,so they lived out of house for 5 days.Then,nothing serious had happened.All people go home.To people superise,the big earthquake happened on sixth day!

Zhang Hua, Tang Shan, China

There are some mis-information and mis-understanding here.
It is possible to predict big earthquake with some certainty.
The role of government is to inform the public and prepare for the potential damage but the Chinese government did none of it. Instead the government hide the information

Timothy, Boston, USA

The most ironic thing is that several local government posted on their website to denounce "rumors" that a big earthquake will hit and vowed to catch anybody spreading the "rumor"
After the earthquake hit, those postings were taken down very quickly. There were signs something about to happen.

Timothy, Boston, USA

To: CS, Sydney, Australia

You are right. Nobody can accurately predict earthquakes. Lack of response to a prediction is understandable. Imagine if the authorities had evacuated 60 million people in Sichuan and there was no earthquake. Wld the authorities be blamed?
No right to bash China!

Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

To: Ana Pereira, Philadelphia, USA
Easy said than done. Can you kindly explain what happen in the Hurricane Katrina episode?
How do you explain when many people in Indonesia refused to evacuate even when a nearby volcano was about to blow its top and red alert given. Luckily it did not blow.

Lim, Johor Bahru, Malaysia

ridiculous. If you are looking to bash China there is plenty of scope but failure to predict a natural disaster can hardly be a good reason. nobody can predict earthquakes that accurately and evacuating people because something 'might happen' is not very clever.

CS, Sydney, Australia

The proof is in the pudding.. These scientists predicted the quake, one even had a date and that materialized.
It is impossible to evacuate a large number of people but it 's quite possible to move people away from the most dangerous, unreinforced masonery buildings, and organize tents areas.

ana Pereira, Philadelphia, USA

It is true the earthquake was predicted, having been in Katmandu - where a similar big quake is due on a 75 year "cycle" - the preparations can be just chaotic.
I'm not sure anything could prepare for this, but buildings could have been constructed better.
http://www.justgiving.com/tibetearthquake

Dawa, London, UK

This post is complete horsebleep. It isn't possible to predict the timing of earthquakes within decades, much less days. If it were, we'd never have earthquake casuaties in any country ever again.

So China willingly risked hundreds of thousands of lives for a torch relay? Stupid comment.

Larry, Shanghai, China

Could they have evacuated that many people even if they had known for sure?

Susan, Barry, S Wales

Unfortunately until there is international consensus on the exact method of earthquake predictions and its accuracy, no government is going to evacuate its citizens on the say-so of the odd academic.
The US could SEE Katrina coming their way and still failed to get its act together in time.

zl, London,

Most of the USGS predictions from the mainstream sources are in decades not days. Stan Deyo's work is more timely but he is placed on the fringe. The swarm methodology gives a likelihood but still not accurate within days.

Ed Hoarse, Cheyenne,

It is quite complicated to predict earthquakes. Even Americans cannot do so though they are famous for their advanced technology and facility. Then why blame Chinese government? What we need now is help and care, but not standing by aloofly. By the way, thank those who helped us in this distaster.

Francisca, xiamen, china

I believe that the next major earthquake will occur in Seattle area in US. It will match, or exceed Sichuan earthquake.

I am not a scientist nor adept at predicting things. And I hope that it will never happen. My whish is we meet such event, should it ever happen, better prepared.

Miron, Seattle, US

i have no comment but offer everybody 3 solid facts:
1.the communist official in this photo, lost his wife and child in this earthquake
2.china's State Earthquake Bureau mainly consists of the academics rather than the communist officials
3.United States Geological Survey has its website
tough?

Ran, York, UK

Earthquakes cannot be forecast - ask the Japanese and Californians! Evacuation of 100 million people is not an option - Sichuan has a pop. of 60 million. This story has been swirling around the Chinese internet and ignored by the media for good reason........

patrick moore, tokyo, japan

I think that's almost impossible to predict earthquakes at any country, so many scientists, whom should we believe? what did they based on to do the prediction? So, to be a journalist, ones should have and some commonsense knowledge about earthquakes!!!

Joey, Chongqing, China

China has easily five times if not more students studying geoscience than the US. They seem to pursue the hard sciences where US students seem to take easier road of social sciences or finance. (Panama also prefers tourism& finance) I'm not surprised that their knowledge extends to earthquakes.

ephilipp, Panama, Panama

There are a lot of extremely talented scientist, seismologists in China. Typically those kind of people would get nowhere near a seat of actual influence and authority, eg Director of the China Earthquake Bureau. They don't hold with seeking truth from scripts sent over by the Propaganda Bureau.

Linda Dial, Calgary, Canada

Are they "eminent seismologists" or "prominent seismologists?"

Jeremy P, Turlock, USA

It always takes a lot to awaken and mobilize the true power in any nation, the people..........the sleeping giant.

David Johnson, San Rafael,

Chinese can predict earthquakes that accurately? That's a lot better than in the US. I imagine the warnings were ignored at least partially because people didn't believe it.

rcfiver, Brussels, Belgium